The present invention relates generally to data communications. More particularly, the present invention relates to deskewing data received over multiple parallel communication channels.
The field of electronic data communications is increasingly important to the global economy. High-speed data networks are now used to transport data representing text, music, images, and even moving pictures. One method of data transmission is serial transmission, in which data is transmitted over a single communications channel. Another method of data transmission is parallel transmission, in which data is transmitted over multiple parallel communications channels simultaneously. Parallel transmission is increasingly popular as it moves data more rapidly over a network, resulting in higher data transmission speeds.
One disadvantage of parallel transmission is data skew, which occurs when the parallel communication channels have different propagation delays. Therefore data sent simultaneously over the parallel communications channels arrives at different times. It can be difficult or impossible to correctly sample the skewed data.